Team size: 12

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Once the Covid-19 pandemic was over, Sky’s objectives had to be realigned and a new strategic plan for 2030 had to be designed. This strategic plan defines our path to become the low-cost airline of choice in Latin America. Over the past few months, our legal team has been working to implement this ambitious plan, focusing, among others, on a number of projects. We worked together with the IT department to negotiate a new passenger service system. This technology platform will enable us to deliver our new strategy and support our growth. We have negotiated the outsourcing of our ground handling services, which will give us the flexibility to meet the operational challenges of a growing business. We have finalised new agreements to increase our fleet. We have also worked hard to expand our airline route network to enable better connections for our passengers. Finally, we are working with the commercial team to create Sky’s first loyalty programme.

As we live in a fast-paced world today, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

In my opinion, an effective legal team must have the knowledge and ability to be a partner to management and, at the same time, a guardian of the company. The basic skills that are needed are technical knowledge and a deep understanding of the business. However, what makes the difference is having people in the team who are forward thinking and creative enough to be innovative problem solvers. In addition, to make a difference, it is important to be informed about what is happening in the markets in which the company operates and to be aware of global trends, so that you, as an advisor, are in a position to advise not only on what is “legal”, but also on what is “right” given the specific context. It is essential for teams to have character and team spirit to collaborate with other firms and to be heard.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Our legal team’s strategy to build strong relationships with our business partners is to take each business project as one of our own, going beyond what we have been specifically asked to do. We have a proactive approach that aims to advise the company leaders on what is right, rather than focusing solely on what is legal. This allows us to gain the trust of our business partners, demonstrating to them that working with the legal team from the outset of a project is worthwhile.

If existent, can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability or other environmentally friendly activities?

This year we published our first ESG report, this was a voluntary decision, as we are not legally required to do so. Sustainable development is an especially important priority for our company and in this report, we give the public detailed access to our goals and achievements in this area. We work hard to make the skies a safe and accessible, but also reliable and sustainable experience. One example of our commitment is how we renewed our aircraft fleet, becoming the newest and most modern fleet in South America, which has enabled us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by 2018-2022. Building on this we are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050.